Betrayed
by ButterflyMiko
Summary: Elaine finds herself betrayed by an old comrade and in need of Ben's help yet again.
1. Chapter 1

I woke to the sound of the doorbell. I went and answered it.

"Hi Elaine," said Maria quietly.

"Look, I'm sorry, Maria," I replied. "But I can't join Chiass again. They used me."

She brightened. "Oh, no! That's not what I'm here for at all! I'm ex-Chiass, just like you! Can I come in now?"

"Oh, sure," I was still suspicious. "Come in."

She sat down on the couch. "I was just wondering about your new friends."

I shut the door and sat down across from her. "You mean Ben, Gwen, and Kevin. Yeah, they're cool. We've fought the Chiass together."

Maria's eyebrows rose. "So you must want to keep close watch, make sure they don't find out about you."

I started. "I thought that information was only given to people deep in the Chiass system."

"I pulled some strings," she played with her dark hair. "Now, do you know where they are? I heard Chiass was interested in Ben's abilities."

I jumped up. "They went to the Circuit City down by the mall."

Maria got up as well. "Thank you for your time, Elaine." She pulled a two-way out of her pocket. "Target located south in the commercial district."

"W-was this a set up?" I said dumbly.

"Of course it was," she snapped. "You should've known. I do believe you just betrayed your friend. See you."

She left. I grabbed my keys and headed for my car. I had to stop Chiass.


	2. Chapter 2

I stopped the car in front of Circuit City and went inside. I was met by Gwen and Kevin.

"They have him, don't they?" I asked quickly.

"They took him before we could fight back," said Kevin angrily.

"Well, if we want to stop them, we've gotta go!" I replied, getting in my car. "I'll meet you at Chiass Headquarters."

"What do you want?" Ben asked, struggling at his bonds.

"We want you to work for us," replied the woman.

"I will never work for you," he replied.

"You'll agree willingly after our technicians get their hands on you," she tapped her fingers on the wall.

Two men in lab coats showed up at the door.

"Oh and by the way," the woman was speaking again. "Your friend Elaine is the one who told us where you were. Sounds like she betrayed you."

The men in lab coats untied Ben and dragged him away.


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay," I said, locking my car. "The entrance is this way."

"They changed it since we were last here," Kevin muttered.

We went inside. The building was deserted. Suddenly, I heard a noise.

"What was that?" asked Gwen.

"It came from over there," I pointed to my left, down a dark corridor.

Suddenly, Mai showed up, with Ben beside her. And he looked…angry.

"You made it!" exclaimed Mai with fake excitement. "I thought I told you to stay away from your friends. Now something has happened, and it's all your fault."

She grinned, putting her hand on Ben's shoulder.

"Don't listen to her," said Gwen. "It's not your fault."

"No, she's right," I replied. "If something happened to Ben, it's because of me."

Mai turned to Ben and whispered something. Ben nodded, and pressed his Omnitrix, turning into Swampfire.

"Ben, what are you doing?" asked Gwen.

"Don't bother," I said. "He's been brainwashed somehow. We have to knock him out and get him to Kai. He'll know what to do."

Kevin absorbed the wall. "Alright then."

Gwen's hands reluctantly began to glow. She didn't want to do this.

I took a few steps backward. Ben threw a fireball at me, but I ducked. I sent a psionic blast in his general direction, but I didn't mean it so it stopped before it hit him.

Kevin was better at it then all of us, maybe because he and Ben used to be enemies. He managed to hit Ben, but Ben used vines to tie us all up.

"Okay, that's enough," I said, and hit him hard with a psionic blast. He hit the wall and timed out, unconscious. The vines released us.

Mai just laughed. "He'll just come back. He doesn't care about you people anymore. You're enemies now."

Mai threw us out with a psionic blast of her own.


	4. Chapter 4

Kai, please tell me you can do something," I said, closing the door to the basement. We had left Kevin and Gwen in the living room. I was trying not to cry.

It was bad enough that we had to knock out Ben to get him to go with us, and now it sounded like we couldn't do anything for him.

"I'd really like to help," Kai said. "But you know I'm used to working with psychics."

I sighed. "I'll pay you," I said. "However much you want, I'll get it somehow."

Kai stared at me. "I never asked for payment. You just want to atone for something, and trust me, that's not the way to do it."

I looked down. "I know. What do you think you can do for Ben?"

Kai stared into space for a moment, then sighed heavily. "It's a question of willpower. He's fighting it, but is it enough? I don't know what more we can do besides the basic tests to make sure his central nervous system is okay."

I walked over to the make-shift hospital bed. "I'm so sorry, Ben."

Kai put a hand on my shoulder. "Whatever you did, I'm sure he will forgive you."

Kai was wrong.


	5. Chapter 5

Ben woke to find himself in Kai's house. It was dark, so he must have slept through the day. He had a killer headache.

What had happened? For some reason, he had attacked his friends. He thought some more, although it made his headache worse. Elaine…she had betrayed him. She was the reason why everything was so messed up!

Ben didn't know what to do. Should he return home and act like everything was okay, when, in fact, it wasn't? Should he demand to see Elaine in the middle of the night and find out why she had betrayed him? Why had she done it? He'd thought that she-

A beeping. Where was it coming from? He immediately looked at the Omnitrix. Nope. It was coming from a machine he was hooked up to.

It beeped again, louder. Why didn't anyone hear it? Was he going crazy? Maybe.

As suddenly as the sound had begun, it stopped mid-beep. Ben sat up in bed, certain he had heard a noise outside, aside from the beeping.

"Come," the voice said.

"No," he replied, not liking the way the voice sounded. "I have to go home in the morning."

"To what?" the voice laughed at him. "You know what Elaine did; how do you know the others didn't betray you as well?"

"No way," Ben replied angrily. "My friends wouldn't betray me."

"How do you know?"

Ben had no answer. He had never thought, in a million years, that Elaine would betray him. He'd even thought for a while that he liked her. But he had been wrong about that too. He had been wrong about a lot of things lately.

Maybe working for them wouldn't be so bad.

Something told him to stop, this was wrong, but he didn't listen. He sat up and unhooked himself from the machines. An alarm was instantly triggered.

Ben jumped out the window.


	6. Chapter 6

"He's gone," I told Gwen and Kevin. "The alarm went off at three AM. The Chiass must have contacted him somehow."

"We have to go get him back," said Gwen.

"He won't come back," Kevin replied.

"Kevin's right," I said reluctantly. "We need help. Kai's coming with us."

"I'm not coming," Kai said. "And I'm not doing anything else for your friend."

"Please, Kai," I said. "What's your problem with Ben anyway?"

"My problem is I like you and he keeps getting between us."

"Didn't see that coming," Kevin said sarcastically. "Shouldn't we be focusing on getting Ben back?"

I glared at Kai. "There's no time for this."

"I'm not going to help you," Kai glared back at me.

"Look Kai, we've been friends forever and maybe we're more than that, but Ben's my friend too. And if you cared about me at all you'd help me get him back."

Kai sighed. "Okay."


	7. Chapter 7

"Why are you still resisting the brainwashing?" Mai asked Ben angrily. "You must have some serious willpower."

"Let me go!" Ben yelled at her. He was sick of their experiments, sick of their brainwashing, and sick of Mai!

"We do have one more thing we haven't tried yet," Mai grinned, and her eyes lit up.

Ben glared at her at first, then put his hands to his head. He hated her-wait, no!-he hated his cousin and her friends. What was going on? He felt dizzy.

Mai released his bonds. "We have some intruders. Ben, get them out of our headquarters, but capture the girl called Elaine. I have some questions for her."

Ben went outside as directed. There they were. The ones he hated. And that girl! She betrayed him and now she was with that stupid friend of hers!

"Ben!" Elaine said. "Are you okay?"

"What do you care?" Ben replied angrily.

She released Kai's hand. "I do care, I just-"

"Then why are you with him?"

"I'm not! I mean, what I mean to say is-you're hopeless!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You never listen to me, you know that? I told you I was sorry! And you don't even-you don't care!"

I glared at him, blinking back angry tears. What had they done to him? And how much of it was what he was doing to himself?

"What am I supposed to believe?" he asked. "I'm supposed to throw you out. And that's what I'm going to do."

"I won't fight you," I said. I turned, the tears flowing freely now, and left the Chiass.


	8. Chapter 8

I sat down in my backyard. I put my head in my hands. I was sobbing by now. This was all my fault. I had put it into motion and this was where I had ended up.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I hiccupped. "Go away."

Ben sat down next to me. I looked at him.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you hated me."

"I don't," he said simply. "I got my head straight. Why did you betray me, though?"

I coughed, trying not to cry anymore. "They tricked me. I never meant for them to take you. I wouldn't wish my past on anyone."

"Your past?"

"They took me when I was fourteen. They convinced me that I was special, so I joined them. I had no idea what I was doing."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I wanted you to think I was forced, not that I chose to be a part of that."

"Well, I still…I like you anyway."

I blushed. "Well it's obvious how I feel."

He blinked. "Really?"

"Yes. I feel torn between my best friend Kai and the guy I like."

"And who would that be?" he asked, playing along.

"You." I laughed, and finally stopped crying.


End file.
